Baltimore’s Dan Deacon, who plays tonight to a sold-out Black Cat, does things differently. His latest album, the critically acclaimed Spiderman of the Rings, starts with cascading and overlapping samples of Woody Woodpecker’s laugh. Usually called an “absurdist composer” rather than solo electronic musician, he packs a crazy sense of humor, samples and loops into a building frenzy on tracks like “Crystal Cat,” the 11 minute “Wham City,” and “Snake Mistakes.”

In concert, Deacon sets up a table on the venue’s floor and is surrounded by audience members close enough to touch. The table is covered in mostly older electronic gizmos, keyboards, samplers, drum machines, vocoders, and so on, plus a glowing green skull and a banana iPod for good measure. The high energy music, humor, and close crowd makes for a big dance party and a great show, which some DCists experienced at this year’s V Fest. However, the proximity can make for some mishaps, like when the banana iPod and his green skull disappeared at different shows. Thankfully both were later recovered, but again, not something you hear with most musicians.

We interviewed Deacon over email about his music, Baltimore, and playing a show with “Chocolate Rain“‘s Tay Zonday. He’s playing tonight at the sold out Black Cat with sample crazy Girl Talk, whose V Fest set we also loved, and DIY electro artist White Williams. The interview is after the jump.